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The Design of Teacher Assignment: Theory and Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Julien Combe

    (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris)

  • Olivier Tercieux

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Camille Terrier

    (UNIL - Université de Lausanne = University of Lausanne, CEP - LSE - Centre for Economic Performance - LSE - London School of Economics and Political Science, IZA - Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit - Institute of Labor Economics, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research, CESifo - CESifo)

Abstract

To assign teachers to schools, a modified version of the well-known deferred acceptance mechanism has been proposed in the literature and is used in practice. We show that this mechanism fails to be fair and efficient for both teachers and schools. We identify a class of strategy-proof mechanisms that cannot be improved upon in terms of both efficiency and fairness. Using a rich dataset on teachers' applications in France, we estimate teachers preferences and perform a counterfactual analysis. The results show that these mechanisms perform much better than the modified version of deferred acceptance. For instance, the number of teachers moving from their positions more than triples under our mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Julien Combe & Olivier Tercieux & Camille Terrier, 2022. "The Design of Teacher Assignment: Theory and Evidence," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-03917996, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:pseptp:halshs-03917996
    DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdac002
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03917996v1
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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